Tobacco-stemming machine



March 4 1924. 1,486,087 A. 'GRODSKY TOBACCO STEMMINGIMACHJIINE 'F iledDec. 12-. 1921 4 sheet-s neet '1 March 4 ,1924. 1,486,087

A. GRO DSKY TOBACCO STEMMING MACHINE Filed Deb. 12E 1921 *4 Sheets-Sheet2 v t I ATT I RNE.

TOBACCO STEMMING MACHINE Filed Dec. 12, 1921 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 L 7 g .I.4 6 ys 3 37 a7 a7 a 376 I I FIG- 4. 52 INVENTOR March 4 1924. 1,485,087A. GRODSKY I TOBAQCO STEMMING momma Filed Dec. 12. 1921 4 Sheets-Sheet 4I lVE-NTOR TTORNEZY I Patented Mar. 4, 1924.

UN 1T STATE S AARON'GRODSKY, F CINCINNATI, OHIO, ASSIGNO'R'TO AMERICANTOBACCO MACHIN- 1,486,087 PATENT OFFICE.

ERY CORPORATION, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE.

TOBACGO-STEMMING MACHINE.

Application filed December 12, 1921-.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, AARON GnonsKY, a citizen of the United States,residing at the city of Cincinnati, in the county of Hamilton and Stateof Ohio,,have invented certain new and useful Improvements inTobacco-Stemming Machines, of which the following is a specification.

I The object of my invention is to produce a simple and highly efficientmachine for stemming. tobacco leaves, each leaf being.

acted upon similarly and the stem-cut therefrom in a precise andpositive manner, and during the'operation of the machine, feeding,brushing, cleaning. and smoothing out both sides of the tobacco-leaf;the machine finally carrying the finished leaves by means of a beltsystem'over and onto a revolving drum upon which they are deposited andheld one on top of the other so that they lie practically injuxtaposition and means for removing the deposited leaves in bulk fromthe said drum; forming an apparatus possessing great utility.

One of the salient features of my invention consists in providing asmooth drum upon which the tobacco leaves are wound, one above theother, lying approximately in juxtaposition, and building up said'pileof tobacco leaves until they have accumulated to a material thickness;andproviding means for exposing the drum so that said bulk bunch ofleaves may be readily removed.

Another feature consists in automatically stopping the machine when thecylinder has completed one revolution and had the tobacco leaf woundupon it; the next leaf can then .be inserted; the operator at the sametime stepping upon a treadle for each revolution of the cylinder, aseach leaf is placed into the machine; only one treadle being used in theoperation of the machine.

Another feature consists in cutting the stem out of the leaf before itis wound upon the drum.

The machine is made simple'and can be placed-into a small space, can bereadily repaired and easily manipulated.

Its other-features and advantages will readily become apparent from aperusal of the following specification and claim.

I maystate that my present invention is an improvement on my LettersPatent 1,225,- 24.0,, of May'8th, 1917.

. Fig. 2,

Serial No. 521,820.-

In the accompanying drawings. forming part of this specificat-ion Fig."1, is a plan view ofthe machine;

Fig. 2,'is a side elevationof the machine,

Fig. 3,is a diagrammatic section on line 33 of Fig.- 1,

Fig. 4C, is a partial section online 4.--4.-'of

Fig. 5, is a side elevation of the cam mechanism,

Fig. 6, is a plan viewofsaid cam-mechaf' nism, and

Figs. 7, 8, 9, 10 and '11 are views showing various positions of saidcam mechanism.

The frame of'the machine is marked :1,

which may be ofanyconstruction; mounted in the frame, I suitably journala shaft '2 in which I mount the clutchpulley 3, which drives said shaft.On shaft 2. I also mount piniongear 4 meshing. with gear 5, whichcarries the pinion 6 meshing with the gear 7 on the shaft 8, (seeparticu-v larly Fig. l) the shaft 8 carries the roller 42 and malecutting knife 9 operating. in conjunction with the female knives 10,.(see Figs. 1, 2, and 3) mounted on shaft'12.

On shaft 8, is a gear 13 meshing with gear 14.- on shaft 12, carryingroller '70. This gear 14 also mesheswith the gear. 15, on a shaft 16,which carriers a roller 17 (see Figs. 2 and 4c) and a stemstripper 18,

which. operates to take theste'm from between the blades of the femaleknife; gear 13 also meshes'with gear 19 on' shaft 20' which carries thefeed roll 21-.

On shaft 8, I also mount mitre gears 22 and 22, meshing with gears 23 onshort shafts carrying the bevel pinion gears 24: meshing with the bevelgear 25 on the shaft 26, which carries gear 27, meshing with wear 28 onshaft 29. On the shafts 26 and 29 are mounted the brushes 30, one upperand one lower brush, at each side of the machine which are setdiagonally as shown.

On a shaft 31 journaled in frame 1, at each side, I mount a drum 32,cylindrical in shape. On said shaft 31, I also mount the cam 33 and thegear 34, which is driven through the intermediate gears 35 and-36,meshing withv the gear 13.

For the purpose of holding the tobacco leaves in place onthe drum-32 Iprovide the belts 37, 37 and 37. All these belts encircle drum as shownin Fig. 3; and'are all held in operative position with the drum byreason of the spring pressed rollers 38, one for each belt, each ofwhich is on a bell crank 39, operated by a spring 40.

.For purposes of feeding, the two middle belts 37 of the series ofbelts, extend forward to a roller 41 in front of the brushes 30; theother belts passing around the rollers 42 on shaft 8. I 7

I will now describe the travel of the belts :-The central belts 37travel from where they pass over the roller 41, toward the right andunder the feed rollers 42 and 21, between the rollers 42 and 70, thenceunder the stripper roller 17, around the drum 32, under the roller 47,over guide rollers '49 and 50, around roller 38, and thence under roller51 back to the roller 41. The two belts 37 pass over roller 42, drum 32and rollers 45, which drive the cylindricalbrush 46. From rollers 45,said belts 37 pass over rollers '49, 50, 38 and 53 back to roller 42.Belts 37 pass over the roller 42, around the drum 32, and then over therollers 47 mounted on shaft 48, thence over rollers 49, 50, 38 and 53back to roller 42. The brush 46 functions to clean the belts 37 and 37after they have deposited the leaves on the drum 32. The belts 37 inpassing under the roller 51 move heneath an inverted V-shaped shield 52,which prevents the falling stems from landing on the belts 37.

On the frame 1, is a shaft 44 carrying near its center, the links orarms 43 which carry the roller 42 (see Figs. 1 and 3). Said roller 42has an annular groove for v the passage of the leaf stem and this rollerrests on the belts 37 to facilitate feeding of the tobacco leaves.

In the operation of this machine, the tobacco leaves are placed upon thebelts 37 and fedunder the rollers 42 and 21. Each leaf passes betweenthe brushes 30 which remove dust andsmooth the leaf out. After passingbetween the brushes, the leaf passes between the rollers 42 and 70 andthe cutters 9 and 10 cut the stem from the leaf. Then the leaf passesunder the stripping roll 17 and then follows the belts and is wound onthe drum 32. To facilitate removing the tobacco leaves 100, it isdesirable that they be placed in superposed rela tion upon the drum 32and do not overlap at their ends, and to provide for this the drum ismade of sufficient diameter to receive the largest tobacco leaves. Tofacilitate winding of the leaves on the drum l have provided means tocontrol the operation of the drum 32 so that the latter will stop at thesame point automatically after each complete revolution. 7 v

' When a tobacco leaf is fed onto the belts 37 and under feed roll 42,the foot pedal 61 is depressed by the operator and this causes the link62 to rock the bell-crank pressure of the end 69 011 said finger 69*.causes the latch plate 65 to swing in an anti-clockwise direction untilone of its edges strikes the depending arm of a bellcrank lever 667,'asshown in Fig. 8. At this time the roller 72 on the arm 66 of saidbell-crank is abutting against the cam 33 (see Fig. 5), so that thebell-crank cannot move in a counter-clockwise direction. Consequentlythe end 69 will then cause the double-ended lever 64 to swing in acounterclockwise direction about itspivot 64, and

throw the movable member 64 0f the clutch.

into clutching position (see Fig. 11). While the lever64 is moving itwill stretch its return spring 64 and finally cause the shoulder 68 ofthe'latch plate to catch on the arm 67, as shown in Figs. 10 andll. Whenthe parts are in this position, the cam 33 will be revolved in acounter-clockwise direction, and the operator cannot disturb the clutch,for the movement of the pedal will merely cause-the end 69 to move alongthe slot 64 of the lever 64. As the cam 33 nears the end of a completerevolution (see 7), its portion 71 will first gently depress the arm 66and the bellcrank 66-67 will gradually release the nose 68 until (seeFig. 10) the portion of the cam strikes the roller 72 and then the bellcrank 6667 will be swung clear of the lever 64 and the spring 4 willswing said lever in a clockwise direction to release the clutch. Thiswill cause the machine to halt with the parts resting in thepositionshown in Fig. 5. s V i The same operation will be repeated foreach following tobacco leaf until a number of said leaves have beensuperposed on the drum 32.

' In order to remove the tobacco leaves 100 from the machine after theyhave been stripped, the arm 73 carrying rollers 47, 45, and the brush 46is raised to the position shown in dotted lines in Fig. .2, thusexposing the drum 32; the drum can then be revolved and the leavesremoved from its periphery; when the leaves have been removed the arm 73can be returned to its normal position.

.While I have described one specific means for carrying my inventioninto effect, it will readily become apparent that the same is capable ofchange and modification and I wish to be understood as claiming thatsuch modification or changes will fall within a scope of thisspecification and claim.

What I claim as new and my invention and desire to secure by LettersPatent is In a tobacco stemming machine having a front lower roller,rear upper and lower rollers having male and female knives at theircentral portions for cutting a stem from a leaf passing between the rearrollers, a front upper roller arranged between the rear rollers andfront lower roller and having an annular groove aligned with saidcutters to receive the stem of a leaf fed to the cutters, pivotallymounted arms carrying said front upper roller and adapted to permit thefront upper roller to be raised while inserting a leaf beneath the same,pairs of upper and lower brushes diverging from said front rollers andadapted to smooth and clean a leaf as it passes between the frontrollers, a stem stripping roller arranged rearwardly of the rear rollersand having a circular stripper wheel extending into the female cutter, abooking drum arranged rearwardly of the stripping roller, guide rollers,the combination of a central pair of belts passing between the frontrollers and rear rollers, beneath the stripper roller,

around the drum and then over the guide rollers back to the lower frontroller, two pairs of side belts out of contact with the front rollersand passing between the rear rollers, beneath the stripper rollers,around the drum and then over the guide rollers back to the lower rearroller, and positive means for driving the brushes, front upper roller,rear rollers, stripper roller and drum.

In testimony whereof, I afiix my signature at Cincinnati, Ohio, this 9thday of December, 1921.

AARON GRODSKY.

